Ryanair's profit ups 10% to EUR 1.45b

Europe's largest budget airline Ryanair announced on Monday its profit after tax for the fiscal year (FY) 2018 went up 10 percent year-on-year to 1.45 billion euros.

Total revenue for the period extending from March 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018 reached 7.151 billion euros, up 8 percent from 6.648 billion euros recorded in the previous fiscal year, said the company in a statement.

In FY 2018, Ryanair carried a total of 130.3 million passengers, a nine percent increase from 120 million passengers in FY 2017, said the press release, adding that the traffic growth was mainly stimulated by a three percent cut in its average fare.

Germany, Italy and Spain were the three largest growth markets for Ryanair in the past fiscal year, said the company.

According to the statement, the Dublin-based carrier took delivery of 50 Boeing 737 airplanes during FY 2018, bringing its total fleet size to 430 units by the end of this March.

Ryanair plans to increase its fleet size to 600 units in the next six years so that it can meet its 200 million customers per annum target in FY 2024, the press release said.

"Our outlook for FY19 is on the pessimistic side of cautious. We expect to grow traffic by 7 percent to 139 million, at flat load factors of 95 percent," said Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary.

The airline's profit for FY 2019, he said, will fall to a range of 1.25 billion euros to 1.35 billion euros due to higher staff and oil prices and lower fares.